Full disclosure – I never passed the level of Tenderfoot during my years as a Boy Scout. In fact, I quit the Scouts after a bullying incident at a Jamboree where, after several of my fellow Scouts received achievement awards, merit badges and the coveted rise in rankings, I received a hand-carved wooden stick. The stick read D.U.C.A., and apparently the Scouts thought it would be funny to give me this award, telling me that the initials D.U.C.A. stood for “dumb, uncoordinated, crybaby asshole.”
That being said … Today, fifty years after those painful moments, I still thought about what Scouting could have been for me. How it could have provided me leadership and guidance and confidence and courage. But while that concept worked for other Scouts, for me it just provided another level of mental torture and abuse and pain.
I suppose had I known the public perception of Scouting in modern times, perhaps my hopes for achieving that Eagle Scout award, that right of passage – the secular equivalent of a bar mitzvah – wouldn’t have felt so untenable.
And I thought about that old D.U.C.A. award. Maybe that was my true lot in Scouting. That I belonged in Scouting the same way jalapenos belong in a milkshake.
Perhaps I need something to exorcise one more emotional demon from my past.
See, a few days ago, I acquired an Eagle Scout badge. No, it didn’t involve earning dozens of merit badges and a community outreach project. I “acquired” it with a winning bid on eBay.
And before any of you Scout alumni start sending me nasty-grams about stolen valor and that I shouldn’t even be in the same ROOM with an Eagle Scout badge, let alone possess such a medal … to all of you, I say, “Go find a couple of Camp Fire Girls and rub some sticks together.”
Besides, if I’m buying an Eagle Scout badge … you know it’s destined for a photography project.
Because I didn’t spend $2,000 on a mint condition Eagle Scout badge – you know, complete with clamshell presentation case and sterling silver pin leaves and a machine-produced autograph from Lord Baden-Powell.
In fact, I purchased a distressed Eagle Scout badge for about $35. This unit was most likely manufactured in the late 1930’s, and as you can see from the photo below, the badge’s drop ribbon is totally tattered. The eagle charm is coated in tarnish, and the “Be Prepared” pin part of the badge is nearly black. Any Scout that wears this badge on their uniform would flunk inspection and probably get busted all the way down to Webelos.
So I want to do something special with this medal. To photograph it in a way that stresses creativity over just a snapshot. In other words … I’m going for a “still life” image.
Now a “still life” doesn’t just mean taking a picture of an object. You need to convey a story within the object. Or within several combined objects, something that allows the viewer to understand the connection between the photographed images.
And to understand the importance of where I’m going with this, I spoke to several of my Facebook friends who, in their teen years, achieved the rank of Eagle. Because, really, you can’t call them “former Eagle Scouts,” they’re Eagles from they day they received the rank.
I asked them about the medal and what could be done with it. I asked about what being an Eagle meant for them. I also asked questions regarding their feelings about Scouting today. Because there are great and important roles that Scouting plays – everything from citizenship to leadership to totemship.
Yet in discussing Scouting’s benefits, there are also dark Scouting moments. Restrictions on gay and trans teens that want to be Scouts. Abuses by poorly-vetted Scoutmasters. And, from my own personal experience – surviving bullying.
With that in mind … I wanted the photo to demonstrate Scouting’s ideal … rather than its nadir. What it should be, rather than where it has faltered.
I looked over the medal. The metal parts are made of sterling silver, so I could give them a good cleaning in an ultrasound tank.
But this ribbon … yecch. It absolutely looks like shit. Maybe if I could acquire a replacement silk and re-assemble the medal, to at least make the award look presentable. Now where can I get that kind of tri-colored sash?
Oh, look. There’s something called a Scout Shop. I can purchase medals and merit badges and achievement awards and whatnot. And there’s a Scout Shop on Washington Avenue in Albany.
I stopped over, and they sold me a replacement ribbon for the badge. All I need to do is open up two prongs on the back of the scroll, and the ribbon should install easily.
But I didn’t just want to swap in the part. I wanted to show the grosgrain ribbon, the tri-colored silk that holds the eagle to the scroll. A quick stop at Jo Ann Fabrics, and I found a roll of red-white-blue grosgrain ribbon. Aces.
A web search provided me with a link to “hacking an Eagle Scout badge,” which is great if you want to swap out the red-white-blue ribbon with, oh, I don’t know, a rainbow ribbon to show your own specific support. If I follow these directions, I’ll have a good chance of restoring this medal to at least some visibility.
Less than 5% of all Scouts ever reach the rank of Eagle. But once you achieve that rank of Eagle, you are always an Eagle. And that ribbon and badge represents your journey.
I need to honor the spirit of that journey.
Oh, and look what else arrived in the mail. It’s a vintage Boy Scout sewing kit. You know, the kind of thing where you can replace the button on your shirt if you’re in the woods somewhere.
Now comes the fun part. Arranging everything – the medal, the grosgrain ribbon, a needle and thread, a pair of safety scissors – to tell a story. And thanks to my newly-acquired Nikon medical lens, I can get some seriously tight detail in this still life.
And ladies and gentlemen … take a look at my first-ever “still life” photo.
Damn. Look at all that detail. The feathers in the eagle’s wings. The perlage engravings on the scissor’s handles. Every single rib in that grosgrain ribbon. This totally works.
And it’s going in the short pile, for sure.
But I’m not done with this medal. No sirree. Because, as I said before, I never earned this Eagle medal. This belongs to an Eagle Scout, not me.
But I can’t give this tattered medal to an Eagle.
So my next project will be to restore and repair this ribbon, and to give it to an Eagle Scout who may have lost his medal through some tragedy – a fire, a flood, some other circumstance.
Because, as I said before, “Once an Eagle, always an Eagle.”
Let’s make this happen.
Chuck The Writer 